How ‘Arul’, nominated for JUNO Awards, gives a new twist to Carnatic music

Sandeep Narayanan has sung Thyagaraja kritis on several stages, but this one was going to be different. “I had to get over my mental block of whether it was appropriate,” he mulls, “To be genuinely convinced and tell myself that it’s okay to go ahead was one of the most challenging things about this project.” ‘Tradition’ is the first track of Arul, an EP that resulted due to a musical collaboration between Sandeep and popular Canadian songwriter-music producer Yanchan Produced. Arul is also a bridge that connects the tradition of India to the modern day.” The birth of Arul Sandeep Narayan first met Yanchan when he was a teenager who wanted to learn to play the mridangam in Chennai. Arul, an EP consisting five short tracks that mixes classical and Western musical sensibilities, was not picked by two major music labels because “it could not be categorised into any genre”. They felt that listening to Arul made them feel a little connected with their roots.” Even as his regular Carnatic kutcheris go on, Sandeep will, this year, work on an extension of the Arul universe, along with Yanchan Produced.